


Frozen

by Kaijuscientists



Series: Fictober 2020 [3]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Cuddling, Hurt Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, Hurt/Comfort, Hypothermia, Temporary Character Death, Trapped in a Freezer, Whump, Whumptober 2020, caged, what it says on the tin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:15:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26825740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaijuscientists/pseuds/Kaijuscientists
Summary: Joe is left behind and gets trapped in a freezer.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Series: Fictober 2020 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1949386
Comments: 4
Kudos: 171





	Frozen

**Author's Note:**

> 4\. RUNNING OUT OF TIME  
> Caged | Buried Alive | Collapsed Building
> 
> This wasn’t supposed to be this long but it really got away from me.
> 
> Low key, I’ve always wanted to put a character in a deep freezer, but even that was to much to do to my favs. Thank you Old guard for allowing me to achieve a dream.

They’re all running toward the extraction point, a helicopter waiting for them. Andy and Nile are already on board, Nicky jumps on, and as the craft is lifting the pilot needing to take off with enemy’s hot in their tail, Joe grabs the railing, hefting himself on to the landing skid. 

Joe twists around panting when suddenly there’s a burning pain in his chest.

“Joe?” He hears someone ask distantly, his ears starting to ring. 

His breath catches in his chest, lungs either unwilling or unable to inflate, his legs giving out as his strength drains with his blood.

Nicky realizes something is wrong when he hears Andy’s voice. He looks up just in time o to see Joe’s knees buckling, his fingers slipping. 

He launches himself, screaming to grab any part of Joe, to stop him from falling but he’s too late. 

“Yusuf!!” Nicky screams, watchIng as Joe plummets to the ground beneath them, the men chasing them surround him. Nicky would have jumped himself if Nile hadn’t jumped to sit on top of him. She knew he’d have done it too. 

“We have to go back.”

“We can’t, you know that.” Andy says, calmly, he’s not sure how she can be. “We have an objective, that comes first.”

“I can’t... we can’t just leave him!” 

“We’ll go back Nicky, just not yet.” Andy says, she’s empathetic, but they can’t just turn around, not without putting everything they’ve done at risk. “We finish the job first.”

\----------------------

Joe comes back, as always, gasping for air, hands clutching his chest. Phantom pain aching through his chest. 

He breathes out, and he can see a visible cloud, which is very concerning considering they were no where close to winter. 

A frosty metal ceiling looms over him, cold biting into his back. He sits up, and it quickly becomes obvious he’s inside of a large freezer. 

“Fuck,” Joe mutters, wrapping his arms around himself. 

He stands, immediately starting to search around the freezer, inspecting the door, disappointed to find there is no handle inside the door and no emergency release either. He searches around, looking at the ducts, and the walls, but not finding any weak points he can exploit. 

“Hello!” He yells, banging on the door, hoping to get someone's attention. Even if it’s bad attention, he would very much like to not freeze to death, it was one of his least favorite ways to die. 

Either the people who put him in her vacated the premises,, or they were just ignoring him, wondering why the dead man they put in the freezer was definity not dead anymore. 

Regardless of the reason, Joe gets no response, resorting to throwing himself bodily into the door in an effort to break it down, but he only succeeds in hurting his shoulder. 

Resigning himself to an eventual chilly death, Joe settles towards the back of the freezer, tucking himself between a few boxes that offer him little shelter from the cool air blowing from the freezer units. 

It’s when he pulls his legs up, hugging his knees to his chest that he feels the burner phone still tucked in his jacket pocket. 

He pulls it out, marveling at his luck, quickly dialing the only number saved in the phone. It rings three times before it connects. 

“Joe?” Andy’s voice rings through the speakers. “Where are you?”

“I’m probably still where you left me.” He says, he couldn’t have been moved very far before coming back. “But I am kind of trapped.” 

“Trapped how?”

“Stuck in a freezer.” 

Andy groans. “No way to get out, you’ve checked everything?”

“Yeah, I’ve checked, trust me there is no way out of here from the inside.” Joe explains. “When can you get back?”

“Day or two, probably, Joe...” 

Joe hates that, not that he wants his family to come back for him before they’re able to do so safely, but it doesn't mean he’s happy about having to spend a few days in a freezer.

“It’s fine, I get it. How’s Nicky holding up?” 

“If looks could kill…” she says trailing off, scuffling over the other end of the phone as it changes hands. 

“Hello, my love.” 

“Joe,” Nicky breathes, relief flooding his chest hearing Joe’s voice. “We’re going to come back for you, I promise.”

“I know, I never doubted for a moment.” Joe says. “Nicolò, be strong, it will be ok.”

“Amore mio.” Nicky says “I love you, be safe, I’l…..”

The phone beeps and call cuts out, he takes it down from his ear to find the screen blinking ‘no signal’.

Rotten luck all round, it seems, that he’d get just enough signal to get a phone call out, only to lose the signal. He paces the room, holding the phone to the ceiling, but he’s never able to get a signal again. 

He keeps moving around, walking laps around the small room, anything to keep his temperature up, but it does little to help. His joints eventually stiffen enough that walking is uncomfortable, so he tucks himself back between some boxes. 

Cupping his hands over his mouth, he blows into them, rubbing them together to try and generate some heat, but they’re numb and it does little to help. 

Exhaustion quickly becomes his next problem, the cold leeching energy right out of him, especially as his body worked hard to heal the damage the cold temperatures were having on his extremities. Though not even his unnatural quick healing abilities could not keep up and he kept nodding off and jerking away. 

He just needs to hold out until the others get to him, he thinks, he can do that, noting with dread that he’s stopped shivering. 

\----------------------

Nicky is on edge the entire way back, two days have passed since they lef Joe behind. He had no way of knowing how Joe was, they hadn’t been able to get back through to Joe on the burner phone after that initial call. 

There’s an ache in his chest, almost like a hole deep in his soul, that will not get better until he’s reunited with Joe. 

They’re expecting trouble, the fringe group they had infiltrated had not been happy about it. But when they return, they are surprised to find the building had been stripped and abandoned. 

Meaning either Joe was no longer there, or he’d been abandoned as well. 

“It looks clear, but we should still be careful.” Nile says quietly, as they approach and enter the building. 

“Split up, we’ll find Joe quicker that way.” Andy whispers, but Nicky is a step ahead, having already broken off from the group, not wanting to wait any longer. 

His gut tells him to check the basement, so that’s where he heads, only barely listening to Andy and Nile over the radio. It opens into a large open room filled with junk, but tucked away in the back he finds a large metal door and his heart soars. 

Nicky pulls the handle, and the latch opens with a loud hiss, condensation spilling from the cracks of the door as the cold air hits the warmth of the room. 

“Joe?” He calls out, hopeful, but deep down he knows there’s no way Joe would be in any shape to answer him at this temperature. The air as he steps into the freezer stings his skin and makes his eyes water. 

“Fuck.” Nicky curses, his eyes fall on Joe immediately, curled in a fetal position on the floor, he drops to his knees next to him, hands hovering over him. He curses in languages long dead as he touches Joe, the man continuing to lie still and silent, his skin is ice cold. Nicky grabs his love under the armpits, and pulls him out of the freezer, Joe remains in the same position, stiff and frozen. 

“I’ve got Joe.” Nicky says, his radio cracking to life, Nile yelling in celebration. “Meet back at the car in 5.”

“You need help?” Andy asks.

“No, I've got him.”

Nicky hefts Joe into his arms, a complete dead weight, cold soaking through his clothing immediately. 

Outside, NIle and Andy are already waiting in the car, Nile jumps out to help.

“He’s so cold.” Nile gasps, when she grabs his legs to pull him into the back seat. In the time it took to get to the car, Joe’s arms and legs have loosened up enough that he can be stretched out over the seat. Nickly climbs in next to him, settling his head on his lap. 

“He’s been in a freezer this whole time.” He says sadly, knowing that Joe hates the cold, and knowing from experience how terrible it was to freeze to death.. “Can we go?”

Andy's response is to peel out, car tires screeching in a rush to get out of there. They have about an hour ride to the safe house. Nicky waits impatiently for Joe to come back. He whispers quietly in mixed italian and arabic, begging Joe to return to him. 

Nicky gets more frantic the longer Joe remains unconscious. 

“Why is it taking so long?” He says, panic edging in on his usually calm voice. He has a palm splayed over Joe’s chest, desperate to feel any sign of a heart beat. “He should have come back by now.”

“He was frozen, nearly solid by the looks of it,” Andy says, glancing back at them in the rear view mirror. “Give him time.” 

“No, it’s taking too long.” 

Nile turns in the passenger seat, putting a hand on Joe’s arm. His skin is still cold to the touch, but he doesn’t look as bad as he had when she’d first seen him. 

“He just needs to thaw a little more,” she says. “Look, he does look better than he did, he’s getting better.” 

At least she hoped he was, she’d never personally been frozen, not yet anyway. But it made sense that his body needed time to repair the damage done from the freezing. 

“If he hasn’t woken up by the time we get to the house, we’ll help him warm up, ok?” 

“Ok, yeah, alright” Nicky says quietly, anxiety sitting in his belly like a knife. 

Joe’s heart does restart before they reach the safe house, a weight lifting from Nicky’s chest at the first beat. But the relief is short lived. His color was returning, lips no longer blue, but he remained unconscious. 

“I don’t know why he isn’t waking up.” Nicky says, feeling the weight of the world on his shoulders as he carries Joe into the house, 

“I think he’s just healing, Nick.” Andy says, unlocking the door to the house. “you know how hard the cold is on your body. He’s alive, he’ll wake up, just give him some time “

Nicky hums. He knew Andy was right, she was always the voice of reason. Yet, his world would not right itself until Joe woke. 

“Take the bed upstairs,” Niles says, “I’ll try to find some more blankets.” 

He settles Joe on the threadbare bed, quickly stripping him of his clothing and getting him under the covers. He still felt chilled, but just cool to the touch, as if he had only swam in the ocean. 

He strips his own clothing too, crawling into bed and pressing his chest right to Joe’s back, wrapping his arms around his chest. 

A soft knock signals Niles reappearance. 

“Got you guy’s this,” she says, spreading a thick blanket over the two men. 

“Thank you, Nile.” Nicky says, voice muffled into Joe’s hair. 

“Call if you need anything, we’ll be downstairs.”

Nicky holds Joes close, whispering in arabic, just rambling a string of consciousness until he notices a change in Joe’s breathing. 

“Joe?” Nicky asks hopefully.

Joe, always slow to wake on a normal day, groans, limbs extending in a languid stretch as Nicky rolls away to give him room. 

He ends flat on his back, eyes open but still half lidded. 

“I must be dreaming,” he says, warm and comfortable. A stark improvement from the last thing he remembered. 

Nicky surges forward, holding Joe’s face in his hands, pressing a searing kiss to his lips. 

“You took too long,” Nicky mutters against his lips. “Was starting to think you would never wake up.”

“Sorry that I worried you.” Joe says, winding his arms around Nicky, the italian melting into him with his heart finally feeling whole for the first time in days. 

“You’ve been out for hours.” Nicky says, resting his head on Joe's chest, listening to his heart beating. 

“I’ll always come back to you, habibi.”


End file.
